Although invasive alien species are very often reduced to predators eliminating defenseless prey, in reality they do more than simply weaken certain species: they fundamentally reshape the environment itself.

O A page from Archimedes' palimpsest, considered lost for several decades, has been identified by a CNRS researcher at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois.

Identified as the most complete Australopithecus fossil discovered to date 1 , "Little Foot" was buried in sediments whose movement and weight caused fractures and deformations, making analysis of its skull-and more particularly its face-difficult.

While the ability to climb trees has often been studied in arboreal mammals, descending is a far more complex task, as it requires control of balance, speed and posture. A team of scientists led by a CNRS researcher

Age, biological sex, and human genetic factors influence the production of antibodies during the immune response. A team of scientists from the Institut Pasteur, the CNRS and the Collège de France have shown that these factors determine not only the quantity of antibodies produced but also the specific viral regions they target. This discovery could have major implications for the development of treatments that are better tailored to each individual's profile. The research was published in the journal Nature Immunology on February 16, 2026.

Documented for 200 years, the Iguanodontia group is expanding with the discovery of a brand-new species, the first known to bear spikes with properties never before observed in dinosaurs.

At the Bromacker fossil site in Germany, an international team including a CNRS scientist 1 has identified the oldest terrestrial fossilised vomit known so far. Dated to around 290 million years ago (Early Permian), several tens of millions of years before dinosaurs appeared, this fossilised vomit, or "regurgitalite," contains numerous partially digested bone fragments, including those of two small reptiles and an amphibian 2 , preserved in a phosphate-poor matrix 3 .

O A page from the Archimedes Palimpsest, considered lost for several decades, has been identified by a CNRS researcher at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois.

A research team led by a CNRS 1 researcher has for the first time accurately determined the age of the cave paintings at Font-de-Gaume (Les Eyzies) in Dordogne (southwestern France), according to work to be published on 9 March 2026 in PNAS.

Thanks to Fink, a software founded by two CNRS 1 engineers, it is now possible to track millions of transient celestial phenomena observed in the sky by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, in real time and with unprecedented precision.

Far from the common assumption of a strictly binary division of labour, the roles of women and men in Neolithic Europe were both clearly differentiated and flexible. This is what a new study conducted by CNRS researchers within an international team reveals. These findings are published in the journal American Journal of Biological Anthropology on February 16, 2026.

A French research team led by CNRS scientists¹ has discovered that cells are able to retain a memory of a previous perturbation within the 3D structure of their genome, independently of their DNA sequence. When they are exposed to a transient stimulus that induces changes in the proteins that compact DNA - thereby altering chromosome architecture - cells retain this modified architecture even after the initial cellular conditions have been restored. Moreover, this cellular memory is amplified if the cells are exposed to the same stress again. These findings will be published in Nature Genetics on February 4.

A specific molecular mechanism has been identified as the cause of the most frequent genetic forms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Charcot's disease) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD).

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the United Nations Agreement on the High Seas (BBNJ) and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) have demonstrated strong commitment by govern